#1-5 I can find no fault with, #6, I'm not sure about 'clamat', which means more to call/shout out. How about 'inquit'? (It pops up a lot in Harrius Potter) #7 should be temerariam, but I suspect that this is just a typo.

2. The girls are angry about the story.-- Puellae iratae sunt de fabula.
This is perfectly correct, but typical order would put any adverbial phrases before the verb, Puellae iratae de fabula sunt or Puellae de fabula sunt iratae. You should try to follow normal word order as much as possible so that when you do make an exception it actually stands out.

4. We are telling tales to the little girls.-- Narramus puellae parvae fabulas.
Girls is plural, so change the singular dative puellae parvae to a plural dative.

Add.: you may wonder why. Herefore, that, "in the form of a woman" indicates a vague sense of manner in which (how, in what fashion, by what faculty does she walk? ) Thus, an instrumental ablative should be employed, which suffers no prepositions, except sometimes "cum". "In" with the ablative is only used to indicate place where (not: time when, which refuses "in"), or circumstance under which.

Last edited by MickeyV on Sun May 02, 2004 5:26 pm, edited 2 times in total.

in 1, you should preferably use "est" only once. -> "Case parva, sed pulchra est." In fact, you may drop "est" altogether. When a form of "esse" in the indicative functions as a copula, it is often omitted. -> casa parva, sed pulchra.

in 6 you should make some changes: it should be -> "mea nemo est magistra, me ipsa doceo". Why? The dative of possession is used, not to emphasize to whom something or someone belongs, but to stress the thing or person owned. Yet in this case, the person to whom (doesn't) belong(s) is the focal point: Arachne is indicating "no one is my master, I am my own master", not "I don't have a master (as opposed to something else), etc". The place of the possessive pronoun is free, yet primary position seems sensible, to even more emphasize the negation of possession.

"ipsa" should be added, to intensify the idea of autonomous action.

Add.: to elaborate on "ipsa" -> without ipsa the sentence "me doceo" would simply, casually assert a fact: I teach myself. But, mindful of the context, we can see, that Arachne is not making a neutral assertion of fact. She is contrasting that fact with a contrary idea (that someone else would be her master). Therefore, to express this contrast, she should stress that element, which forms the contrast.

Hmm, I'm having second thoughts on "ipsa". Although what I said about contrasting holds good, it would, in this case, be more aptly expressed, not by "ipsa", but simply by "ego". -> "ego me doceo". Why? Because the contrast consists in, not so much, that Arachne teaches herself all by herself, of her own accord", but herein, that, of course, Arachne, and no one else, is her teacher: "I teach myself".